Australian Cities

The question of whether city or country is best has been an ongoing debate for a long time. I heard it often as I worked in Brisbane for thirty years and prior to that as I lived and worked in various regional, rural and remote locations in Queensland for extended periods.

In the 1200’s Marco Polo a merchant and great traveller declared cities were best. For twenty-four years Polo journeyed to and from Venice to China along the Great Silk Road. On his travels he encountered many great cities including Constantinople, Baghdad and Beijing and he realised that cities were far more important to the economy of the Silk Road than the country areas through which it passed.

In 2010 in Australia the independent federal politicians are about to “turbo-charge” regional and rural Australia according to their spokesperson Rob Oakeshott. They have secured a new $10 billion regional investment fund in return for their votes and they seek to prove Marco Polo’s assessment wrong. For them the country is at least as important as the city.

Continue reading "Fixing the failed state that is regional Australia" »